Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received letters from the honourable member for Page and the honourable member for Goldstein proposing that definite matters of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion today. As required by standing order 46(d), I have selected the matter which, in my opinion, is the most urgent and important; that is, that proposed by the honourable member for Goldstein, namely:

The need for the Parliament to support social cohesion and take steps to ensure the safety, security and wellbeing of those affected communities at a time of international conflict where communities in Australia are directly affected.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Friday, at Princes Park in Caulfield South, in my electorate of Goldstein, my fears were realised. The unfolding conflict in Israel and Gaza had reached the streets of Melbourne in a frightening way, on a Friday, Shabbat, when members of our Jewish community were at worship in a synagogue nearby. A fire in a nearby Palestinian-owned store drew protesters into a heavily Jewish neighbourhood, at a time when residents were walking the streets to and from shule with their families. This was the kind of face-off that I had been actively trying to prevent, repeatedly urging that social cohesion must be at the centre of all our concerns and that actions and language must be measured and careful. No-one was seriously hurt, thankfully, but the anxiety among the Jewish community after the terror attacks of 7 October in Israel affecting, in many cases, people who they know, has been magnified.

Antisemitism is on the rise. Many Jewish people are fearful and anxious when outside their homes. Some students from Jewish schools are avoiding wearing uniforms and Jewish businesses are facing protests and boycotts. At the same time, Palestinian Australians and others are traumatised by events in Gaza. I am too. I am desperately concerned about those in the Jewish community in Goldstein and across the world. I am also heartsick at the deaths of thousands of civilians in Gaza, especially children. The two feelings can coexist—indeed, they must.

What happened last Friday in Goldstein is the leading edge of what could escalate, and we in this place must all understand and operate under the principle that every word we utter has a consequence. We cannot allow distress to turn into hate and anger in a way that divides us. Australia has limited ability to influence the course of events in Israel and Gaza. What we can do, and have a responsibility to do, is to articulate multipartisan calm, to encourage empathy and, at all costs, to take the politics away.

The risk of cataclysmic global conflict is higher now than at any time since the height of the Cold War or the Cuban missile crisis. Now we're confronted with a conflict in Israel and Gaza which directly affects our own communities and threatens to tear apart the hard-earned gains of Australian multiculturalism—the envy of the world. As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility in these circumstances not to pointscore. The Director-General of ASIO has been sufficiently alarmed himself to warn:

… words matter. ASIO has seen direct connections between inflamed language and inflamed community tensions.

He said:

… it is important that all parties consider the implications for social cohesion when making public statements.

I'm sure that most of my colleagues in this place will have been alarmed at the tone of the communications from constituents to their offices in recent weeks: threats, anger and hatred from all sides. I can only imagine what Jewish and Muslim members of this place are receiving. I raise this not to call attention to the welfare of MPs but to point to it as a social barometer. Personally, on that level, having seen the aftermath of conflict around the world, and, as a reporter, having been amid deadly civil unrest myself, I have spent recent weeks experiencing sickening and stomach-churning anxiety about what happens next.

The Jewish community is justified in feeling that the events of 7 October bring back real memories and fears of the Holocaust—that it's happening again. Last Saturday I met with the Premier, along with my colleague the member for Macnamara, state MP David Southwick, senior Victoria Police officials and representatives of the Community Security Group, along with Jewish organisations, to review what happened and to determine the next steps to prevent it from being repeated. I have engaged with Jewish organisations and institutions in Goldstein, including several of our rabbis, to check on their welfare and that of their members. I have also met with members of the Australian Palestinian community and have listened to their grief and their pain. I have appealed to them to put social cohesion at the centre of all that they do as they express those things.

Australia, I believe, is facing its greatest test since multiculturalism was instituted by Malcolm Fraser and Petro Georgiou in the 1970s. It has stood the test of time until now. Let it not fail. We must pull this up here, in Australia; we must pull back from this tipping point, where hate and anger become so dominant that any nuance, any capacity for reasoned conversation or empathy for others, is lost.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start by thanking the crossbench, the member for Goldstein and a number of members who will speak. The conversation about how we lower the temperature in what is happening in the community is not something that simply happened by reference to this MPI. I have taken personal phone calls from many members of the crossbench, knowing the nature of my community, and we've been trying to work out what we can do at different points to help lower the temperature and to acknowledge the very real grief—I don't think it's an exaggeration to use the word 'trauma'—that the people we each represent are experiencing. I want to advise the House but in particular to publicly acknowledge when those crossbench members have raised this with me it has helped member of my community when I have told them that they did. It has mattered, and I am deeply grateful for it.

I hope as part of where Australia is now at we can once and for all do away with the argument that somehow hate speech is part of freedom of speech. I have heard those debates in this chamber on and off for the best part of a decade. I remember when it was seriously argued that the right wasn't the right to protection from hate speech; the right was the right to be a bigot. It was put in a serious form by someone who, I might say, on many aspects of these sorts of issues actually had a really good reputation. This concept of freedom of speech as an article of faith is something that I do appreciate. If you live the life that I have lived and you only see it from your personal perspective, maybe you could get there. I have never been subject to hate speech. I will cop—as we all do—hatred, anger and bile for what we have done or for what someone thinks we might have done or might have said, but we never cop it for who we are. For so many Australians, that is their daily experience.

I also want to make sure—and this resolution and this opportunity for the parliament, I think, does it brilliantly—that we don't get into some world where somehow it is a competition about who is being the more picked on. If anyone is subject to any level of bigotry, that is not acceptable. We need to call it all out. I had one person ask me just the other day, very genuinely: 'When there is something that causes so much concern, such as, for example, Caulfield, why is it that the response is to refer to both antisemitism and Islamophobia given the concern there was publicly viewed very much as being about antisemitism? Does that mean you are somehow excusing the other?' No, it doesn't.

While we might live much of our lives observing what's happening in the community by what breaks in the media, the people we represent don't have to wait for a media story to be experiencing this. The big moments that make the papers that are horrific are a tiny subset of the constant drain of being harassed because you are in the school uniform of a Jewish school or having all the confidence in the world prior to 7 October and now saying, as one woman said to me not long ago, 'Right now, I won't go out without my husband.' That's because she wears a hijab. She knows that, the moment she gets outside of the immediate suburb she lives in, she will have people calling her a terrorist. Someone else wearing the keffiyeh, the Palestinian scarf, a schoolteacher I know very well, let me know three days ago that just walking through the streets she had food thrown at her along with abuse. None of this makes the papers. It's not necessarily because the papers are holding it back; most people don't report it. Most people just want it to go away. Most people just want to be able to live their lives. This is where our leadership roles in our communities can allow us to call it out, both when it's against the people we represent and when it's not. That consistency I hope provides a pathway, some level of solace and, in the tiniest way, some level of example.

I've addressed most of this in terms of members of parliament. I do want to say something to the media. I'm always wary because when you say something to the media it can blow things up in a worse way, but I do think something needs to be said. Please, just be wary of magnifying an offensive voice that is already a complete fringe marginal voice and pretending it is somehow representative. I know that this is being done in an area close to me with some hate speech. It has been presented as though it's somehow representative of the Islamic community. If you go to the person's social media feed, you see that most of their posts are actually an attack on the leadership of the Islamic community. They're a complete fringe group that have never had anything like the publicity they've had in the last week. I worry what that impact will end up being. I know similarly that there are some groups that present as representing the Jewish community in Australia. In terms of membership, I am told they are nowhere near as representative as you would think. Understandably, journalists sometimes go to where it's quickest to get a quote when they're putting a story together.

In Australia the vast majority of people who are deeply affected by their personal relationships to the region have I think two things in common. The first thing they have in common is that they are experiencing not just grief but trauma right now. Think of the grief that any of us feel when we hear that a family member has passed away. Imagine that sort of grief and trauma being presented to you graphically multiple times a day on your phone. That's happening and that is putting people on edge. The second thing people have in common is that they deeply want Australia to work. They deeply want our relationships with each other to be good and positive. We have a real role in making sure that that happens.

The concept that abuse is just words is not true. And some of it is being done by members of parliament. The worst examples are by members of parliament in the other place, not in this one. These debates tend to bring out the best and the worst of what leaders are capable of. I met today with one of the rabbis who walked with me in Lakemba a few years ago in the Walk for Respect. It was a wonderful conversation of hope. It feels in so many ways like we have gone backwards. For people's ordinary experience of what it is to live in Australia we have gone backwards in the last month in a big way for a lot of people. I want those people in some small way to know by this debate that there is a core of people who in fact do represent the communities most directly affected, who hear you, who respect you, who call out the hate speech against you, no matter where it comes from, and who dearly want you to feel as safe in Australia as we do.

Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As elected leaders of our communities and representatives of our country we have a huge responsibility of setting the tone, the language and interactions of this chamber, to ensure that we demonstrate respect, civility and consideration of the Australian public when we talk on and debate matters of public importance. As the elected member of Fowler—and Fowler is one of the most culturally diverse electorates in the country—I stand for cohesion, I embrace and respect differences and I am a strong voice for my community. Therefore, I cannot stress enough the important role that we in this House play in protecting and nurturing the wonderful multicultural tapestry that we have in Australia, at a time when international strife has caused mass casualties and inflicted grave harm to human lives.

I have no doubt that Australians from different cultures, faiths and lived experiences are impacted by the conflict in the Middle East. While the conflict is not directly at our doorstep, our people have families and friends who have lost their lives from this tragedy. There's no denying that there's real pain and anguish in our communities, including those of many members in our House. It's critical that we are conscious of Australia's multicultural community and recognise that both the Jewish and Muslim communities have probably been impacted the most. Incidents of Islamophobia and antisemitic incidents are at a record high according to the Guardian. Within a month, the period between October and November, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry reported 221 antisemitic incidents—42 incidents were within a single week alone. Within the same time frame, the Islamophobia Register Australia reported 133 incidents, but authorities believe that the accurate number is much higher because Islamophobic hate crimes are historically underreported.

Australia does not condone this abhorrent upward trend of targeted violence against any communities in our diverse country. It is our job as representative leaders to reassure our people and confirm that the government prioritises their safety, security and wellbeing. Therefore, I stand before this parliament and implore that we pay close attention to the words we choose and the stance we take to ensure good faith in all Australians, from every religion, ethnicity, race and skin colour, that their leaders stand with them and for them. By focusing exclusively on addressing antisemitism, we are prioritising one group and overlooking an entire community. It is impossible to condemn the attack against Israel and ignore the horrors in Gaza. This approach is polarising and is the most harmful and dividing thing that we could do as leaders. We must recognise the position of privilege we are in to be able to turn off the news and put down our phones amidst the ongoing crisis, because the not-so-secret reality is that a horrific amount of human lives, regardless of where, have been and are being lost in the Middle East. For that reason, it is pivotal that the message we establish on the matter as a nation is made with clarity and conviction—so, when we condemn Hamas's action of terrorism, it is not Islamophobic, and, when we call upon Israel for a ceasefire, it is not antisemitic; it is purely and completely indiscriminate humanitarianism.

Let me reiterate this. The condemnation of the killing of innocent lives, including women and children, and the bombing of buildings is not a stance charged with religious or racial prejudice; it is a call for basic human rights. Furthermore, I cannot ignore the politics of fear being used in this parliament, as it is dangerous. It drives out reason and is an obstruction to productive discourse. Right now, Australians are grappling with critical economic challenges that impact our livelihoods, and the last thing we should be doing is driving more fear. The cost-of-living crisis is a critical issue that affects everybody in Australia, including not only adults and parents but youth and children as well. In spite of this, the parliament is inciting fear, anger and division on an already devastating conflict. Instead, we must prioritise social cohesion and take the necessary steps to ensure the safety, security and wellbeing of our impacted communities. This begins in the parliament with the message we are sending to Australians—that we are all Australians.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May I start by thanking, from the bottom of my heart, the crossbench for bringing forward this motion and recognising that our social harmony, our community harmony in this country, is indeed a matter of public importance. I recall in 2016, when I delivered my first speech, I looked up at the gallery and there was a Muslim sheikh, a Jewish rabbi and a Christian pastor sitting in the gallery. It could make the opening line of a joke! But, in this case, they were there to listen to my first speech—a first, I believe, in the history of this place, to have representatives from the three Abrahamic faiths present at a first speech. They were there to hear me say these words:

It is a time when we should not allow important discussions about our future to degenerate into a competitive agenda of rights, for all rights are worth pursuing and worth pursuing with vigour.

I repeat those words now, and I add to those words: standing up against anti-Semitism does not mean that you can't also stand up against Islamophobia and vice versa. In fact, standing up against anti-Semitism compels you to also stand up for Islamophobia and any other form of hate speech and vice versa.

You would think though that what we saw in this place yesterday would have you believe that sowing the seeds of division and harvesting community tensions is a way to conduct politics for a particular political agenda, but, as David Crowe observed in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning, the opposition leader's:

attack was incendiary by design. At the very moment leaders are meant to be calm, he chose to inflame.

Shortly after I was elected to this place and shortly after I delivered that first speech, my baptism of fire into politics was our debate on section 18C and removing section 18C from the Racial Discrimination Act. As somebody who had been subject to hate speech for most of my career but also as somebody who had worked with civil society and with governments here in Australia and right across the world on social cohesion, on community tensions and particularly with young people on ensuring that young people do not get embroiled into an ideology that leads them down a path of violence and hate, I had to stand here and listen to the now opposition defend the claim that people had the right to be bigots. Suffice to say, that was my baptism into parliament, and there were many moments during that period when I wondered whether I had made the right decision to give up my career and come into this place.

I had thought we had put that behind us, as the manager of the House had said. I had thought we had moved on from those times and we had put that behind us. What we saw in this place yesterday demonstrates the fragility of social cohesion and the fragility of community harmony but also the reason why we need to be ever vigilant against those who would sow the seeds of hate, who would sow the seeds of division and who would exploit hatred and division at a time when we have communities who are feeling so traumatised, so anxious and so insecure.

I call on everybody in this parliament to uphold the values of leadership and bring us together for the sake of the people we represent.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, their targeting and their murder of civilians and the taking of Israeli hostages was inexcusable. Since then, the civilian population of Gaza has been forced to pay the price for Hamas's reprehensible actions. It's been clear from its onset that this conflict would lead to tragic levels of civilian suffering and death. More than 200 Israeli hostages remain captive in Gaza, many of them children and infants. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Journalists, medical personnel and humanitarian staff have also been killed in Gaza. Gazans have suffered the tragedy of being used as human shields. The war has caused life-threatening shortages of water, food, fuel and medicines, and for the last five weeks the whole world has watched on in horror and with grief.

In Australia, Jewish and Muslim communities are shocked, saddened, fearful and angry, both about the war and about how it has affected our society here. I'd suggest that every Jewish individual and every Muslim individual in this country, every member of the Israeli and Palestinian diaspora, has been traumatised by this tragedy. They feel pain, they feel helpless, they are hurting. Some have struggled to let others speak of their sadness regarding this human tragedy and of their desire for peace. They've struggled to allow that without falling into accusations and reproach. We often say that there is no room for antisemitism or Islamophobia in Australia, but both have been expressed in the streets of this country in recent weeks: in protests and in demonstrations; in writing and online; in attacks on schoolchildren, faith groups and businesses. Communities are divided and people feel unsafe.

In recent years, this country has dealt with the frightening uncertainties of a pandemic and, more recently, with a bruising referendum. Social cohesion is at a record low. We're struggling with cost-of-living and housing crises, and with increasing intergenerational inequities. Australians are polarised and stressed, but now on our televisions and social media feeds we're seeing images of untold loss.

We need our leaders to take us forward with empathy and with generosity, to hold us together and to remind us of our shared values. Instead, at this time of great grief and horror, the opposition has chosen to foment anger, when what we needed was respectful, measured leadership. Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition elevated tensions with false accusations. He launched a mean-spirited attack when he could have modelled compassion and kindness. He claimed concern that temperatures were rising, while he poured further fuel on the fire. That is not leadership. Going down dark rabbit holes of fearmongering and name-calling is the last thing that this country needs.

We all need to unite, not divide, our communities. We need to support all faith, racial and ethnic groups in this wonderful melting pot of a country. We need to show all Australians as best we can our support, our care, our respect and our love. We need to tell all Jewish Australians and Muslim Australians that they matter, that they are valued, that their presence enriches our culture and makes us better, and that we cannot ourselves solve the terrible divisions in the Middle East but we can resolve and we can ensure that they don't divide us here. Now, more than ever, we have to work together to support our communities in their hurt and in their trauma and to hold each other close.

The language that we use matters. We have to let all Australians speak their truth, and we have to hear them with respect. We have to reject the divisive tactics adopted by the opposition in this place yesterday. I pledge to work as best I can for as long as I am in this House to support all members of my electorate and to work for peace and cohesion in this country.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the member for Goldstein on her matter of public importance. The member for Goldstein is my electorate neighbour. Since becoming the member for Goldstein, I've seen her bring an intellect and a thoughtfulness to this place and to the people of Goldstein as their representative. But until Friday night I didn't realise how much the member for Goldstein cares about her community. I heard it on the phone when we spoke, at about 9.30 at night, after we had, frankly, one of the most confronting scenes I've ever seen happen in my community in the more than three decades I've lived there.

I've lived in and around Macnamara and Goldstein my whole life. The warnings that we heard from the Director-General of Security of ASIO, of having demonstrations meet each other, were unfortunately found to be exactly correct. The scenes that happened—where people were assaulted, where people were screaming at one another, where people were breaking police lines, where businesses were targeted—were unacceptable, and they were dangerous. They go to the heart of why I think this matter of public importance is so important right now, because, frankly, despite the fear that people were feeling after Friday night, the one thought I had afterwards, as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep, was: 'Thank God no-one was killed. Thank goodness, in Australia, no-one lost their life in that moment,' because that wouldn't have been devastating for just one community; it would have torn the social fabric that we are talking about right now even further apart.

That is why it is absolutely important that we do everything we can, everything in our power, to be there to support communities: to support the Islamic community, who are going through the most unimaginable pain right now, and to support the Jewish community, who are lost in this world of devastation and antisemitism that I hadn't ever experienced in my lifetime.

You know, I think about what this country has meant for me and my family. I think about the fact that my grandparents, all four of them, were born in different countries. I think about the fact that one grandmother didn't have a state next to her name when she arrived here as a four-year-old girl, and what this country meant for her, and the life that she was able to build as a migrant coming into this country. I think about my grandparents, who left school when they were 13 years old. They came here, and Australia meant that they could send their kids to university, for free; that they could send their kids to the doctor if they were sick; that it didn't matter how much money they had in their bank account, they were going to be able to be there and provide for them and their family. My family has an incredible life here in Australia, and we are proud Australians. And I want that for every single Australian.

I look at the Australian Islamic community and I see among them my people and my friends. I see the Islamic community as people who have had similar experiences, of coming to this country and wanting to build a life of peace and prosperity. I want them to be able to go to the mosque and to be with their family and to practise their faith and to be who they are, in our country—just as I look at my own community and think that it is devastating that our schools are fortresses; that our synagogues have walls; that people are terrified to show their identity and to publicly display being a Jew in Australia in 2023; that kids are thinking about whether or not they can do that in public; that children right now are thinking about whether or not they can wear their yarmulke in public. That is not the Australia I grew up in. That is not the Australia that has been a safe haven for my family.

So it's incumbent on all of us remember what it is to be multicultural Australia—why this is a fundamental part of who we are; why the member for Goldstein has brought this matter of public importance into this place today: because we are all custodians of not only the laws of this place but the social fabric and the culture as well. We are leaders in a time where there is great tension and where there is great difficulty and pain being felt. So it's incumbent on all of us not to seek to increase that pain, not to seek to further divide and polarise communities, but to try, in some way, to bring people together and to show that we have a shared humanity that is not just as Jews or Muslims but as Australians and as people.

I thank the member for Goldstein, and I thank all members for joining in this discussion.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today is the International Day for Tolerance. This morning I attended a multifaith breakfast in Parliament House, and that was a very appropriate thing to do, because the last few weeks have been a traumatising time for our community—particularly our Jewish and our Muslim communities. Over 200 people are still hostages. Thousands of people have died. And these are not distant events. The dead, the missing, the injured—these are the friends and families of our people in Australia.

Australia has been a safe haven for many people from around the world, and for none more than the Jewish community. A woman came to see me last week. She was born in Australia, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor on one side and Jewish relatives who'd been in Australia since the 1880s on the other. After seeing the antisemitic chanting at the Opera House, her 12-year-old son asked if they were still safe here. Another man received a text from an old university friend. It was the first time he'd heard from her for ages. But the message was blunt: 'What you are doing in Gaza is appalling.' It was as if every Jewish Australian were responsible for every action of the Israeli government and as if Hamas had never attacked.

In my community we have seen posters of Hitler. We have seen Jewish businesses boycotted. Next door in Goldstein, we have seen a violent conflict and a deliberate and provocative motorcycle convoy to the beaches of the eastern suburbs, which is the heartland of the Jewish community in Australia. And we have seen horrific chanting at the Opera House. These are horrifying to my community, particularly because of the history of antisemitism.

The Jewish Holocaust survivors in my electorate and their families remember when they were accepted members of the Jewish community and of other European communities. They attended schools. They worshipped. They ran businesses. They fought alongside their neighbours and other people. Then, when things changed, they were almost wiped out. That is the history of the community, and this is why the fourfold increase in antisemitism since October has left Jewish Australians asking whether they are welcome here. It is up to all of us to give them the reassurance that they are.

But the Jewish community is not alone in feeling the pain of the conflict in the Middle East, nor in facing discrimination. One constituent wrote to me about his wife, a respected Palestinian Australian professional who gives her time to charity. He said: 'I can't believe I'm having to say this, but my wife is not a terrorist.' Many people in this House have told me about their Islamic communities and of the challenges and the Islamophobia they have faced, and it is tragic. The Jewish community is grieving, the Palestinian and Muslim community is grieving, and the Australian community is horrified by the death of civilians overseas. It is our shared humanity that cries out at the civilian deaths.

One of the privileges of being an MP is to officiate at citizenship ceremonies, and there are incredibly moving words, which I'll read:

We believe in a society in which everyone is equal, regardless of their gender, faith, sexual orientation, age, ability, race, national or ethnic origin. Ours is the land of the fair go, in which respect and compassion underpin our care for each other and our willingness to reach out to those around us in times of need.

We are in times of need. We need to reach out to each other now. We need to stand up against antisemitism, against Islamophobia and against racism. We need to consider our words and actions carefully.

This parliament and parliaments around the country must lead by example. Our first duty is the safety of our community. We must ensure that our laws protect our community and that their enforcement is appropriate, and I am working with the New South Wales government around that in my community. Our children are our future. We need to protect them and make sure that they feel safe and welcome and that they are educated appropriately so that the tropes of antisemitism and Islamophobia do not persist in future generations and that everyone is welcome in our universities. As leaders in this place, a microcosm of Australia with a variety of religious and other backgrounds, we need to show that we stand together. We need to choose our words carefully, because we know words matter. We cannot expect to speak with violence in this place and not expect violence to be repeated in the words and deeds of our communities.

It is very hard to think clearly when grief and anger cloud our vision, as it does in so many of our communities, but this is not the time to let Australians turn us into 'us and them'. Regardless of how you see things overseas, everyone in Australia must recognise that this conflict, more than any other, demonstrates that we cannot take for granted our tolerant, open and multicultural society. There is nothing to take for granted, and it is up to all of us to safeguard it.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday I wasn't in the chamber but I watched on the television in my office as the member for Swan, in such a heartfelt way, reminded people in this chamber that the words we say here reverberate around the country, and I am pleased to join in this matter of public importance today and see the opposite occurring. The words being said today will reverberate—hopefully, around this country. Hopefully, at kitchen tables tonight, people will be discussing the members of parliament who stood up and talked about social cohesion and the importance of social cohesion in all of our communities.

There is not a member of this House who does not feel the loss that the globe is watching. But, as I said to a group of students in one of the Islamic schools in my electorate a week ago, while I was hosting the SRC forum for the end of the year—and, as I said in this place when I spoke on the resolution supported in this House—my community is like a microcosm of the globe. If we get social cohesion right in Wyndham then we will be something for the world to look to and say: 'Look at that! Australia already prides itself on being that shining light of multiculturalism.' I am proud to say, as a proud Victorian, that I think we do it extraordinarily well south of the border.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're all parochial! No-one is more parochial than an Australian group of people. What has mortified me most in our communities in the past month has been people taking to a conflict like it's a football game—choosing a side and barracking. This is something for which there should be tears, shared tears of humanity, that in another part of the world people cannot resolve differences through peaceful means. This is something we should mourn, and I know that in my community it is being mourned.

As has been mentioned—and I want to thank the member for Goldstein and the member for Wentworth for their words—I represent one of the most multicultural communities in Australia. I attended an event last week, the Barry Jones Oration, which is organised by the Wyndham City Council. It's an annual event. I walked into that event, stood and smiled, because what I saw was the business community, our teachers and schools—the representation for my community in that room was extraordinary. And it was multicultural and multifaith. There are over 100 languages spoken in my community, and 46 per cent of my community were born overseas. We come together every day in classrooms and every day at the school gate. We are building that great multicultural community.

I said here on the day of the resolution that I was pleased to receive emails, because I was pleased to see that I had people concerned about what happens around the globe. That isn't surprising in my community; people are affected by issues around the globe personally. And they're affected by this issue personally. I want to say thank you directly to the people in my community who have behaved so responsibly throughout this. They're feeling the pain, but their behaviour is cognisant of social cohesion. I want to thank the leaders—particularly of the Muslim community in my community—for their forbearance, for meeting with me and for listening as much as they speak. I hope they say the same of me. I want to thank them for showing their respect for social cohesion because, trust me, we know what the other looks like. We're looking at the other; we're looking at what happens when you don't have social cohesion. We're looking at what happens when people can't find a peaceful outcome.

I want to finish by saying this. To those who are stoking division, to those who think that seeing Islamophobia is a good thing, or that antisemitism is a good thing: cease and desist. It is our country you're hurting in following this line. We all need to be the grown-ups in the room, the grown-ups at the kitchen table and the grown-ups in the classroom. We all need to ensure that the young people who are listening to us hear that we stand together.

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just want to acknowledge all of my colleagues who have spoken in this place already and thank them for being here this afternoon. Thank you for enabling this conversation.

Coming into this place, I knew there would be times that would be difficult to navigate, both for my community and myself. The truth is that we find ourselves in one of those times at this very moment. In the course of the last six weeks, our country has had a number of challenges that would test the fabric of any society, from the bruising and divisive debate that dominated the referendum for a Voice to Parliament and the outcome of that referendum, through to the discussions we have witnessed in this place in recent weeks relating to the appalling attacks on innocent civilians in Israel on 7 October. I want to say from the outset that I do not think there is a single person in this country who does not believe that what happened on 7 October in Israel was abhorrent. I certainly know there is not a single person in my seat of North Sydney who does not believe that. The loss of any life is to be mourned, and the loss of a life taken so violently should shock us all to the core.

The challenge to our community since that time, however, has been to find a way to navigate what is a fundamental truth: that two things can be true at the same time. We can, as a society and a nation, condemn the acts that took place on 7 October. We can empathise with the Israeli community, and we can do everything in our power to embrace that community and to ensure that they are protected within the community and that they know that they are loved. At the same time, we can also be shocked by what we see taking place in Gaza, with thousands of Palestinian lives lost, including the lives of innocent women and children.

Today I met with a delegation of healthcare professionals who were here to represent over 25,000 of their peers. They'd all signed a petition calling on our government to do everything we can to urgently address the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. They came from different backgrounds, different medical specialties, different communities and different faiths. But, rather than be divided by their differences, they chose to unite behind their shared medical ethical principles to advocate for all life. For this reason, I will be eternally grateful to them. They represent the best of us. At this time, it is imperative that we work to create an environment in which everybody feels safe, in which everybody understands they're valued and everybody recognises that there is no place in our country for racism in any form, be that antisemitism or Islamophobia.

Events like the ones we are witnessing globally challenge us, but, in doing so, they can either prove the strength of our multicultural fabric or they can prove its weakness. Certainly the Mapping social cohesion report, which was released only yesterday, found that social cohesion in Australia is at its lowest level in 16 years. The report indicates that significant numbers of people experience prejudice and discrimination routinely in everyday life and that the attitudes to government and democracy in this country are now politically charged and polarised. Who are we when we allow that in this place? Who are we as a parliament and who are we as leaders? A socially cohesive society is one where all groups have a sense of belonging, participation, inclusion and legitimacy. This sense is being severely tested at the moment, and I am seeing it, heartbreakingly, in my community.

We were warned only weeks ago by the ASIO director-general of the direct correlation between language and inflamed tensions and violence. It is essential that we maintain space in our communities for people to legitimately express different opinions on matters which deeply concern them, without complex matters being reduced to artificially binary positions. Social cohesion and democracy cannot function without the ability to disagree peacefully and respectfully. At the same time, we must acknowledge that all forms of racism destroy social cohesion. They must be forcefully, loudly and consistently condemned, rather than used to stoke division. Inciting racism for political gain directly threatens our social cohesion and, ultimately, our democracy.

As the member for North Sydney, I'm incredibly proud of the vibrant and diverse community I represent. We are a community that is a microcosm of the multicultural society which is today's Australia. In this place I say that my community believes in the sanctity of all life. My community rejects racism in all forms. As the voice for that community, I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to speak with my colleagues today about the importance of prioritising, and fighting for, social cohesion. I undertake to continue that fight every day that I am enabled to stand in this chamber.

Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are in the midst of a political storm—and, more importantly, a moral storm—that is impacting our social and community cohesion. The cohesion of our multicultural society is one of our nation's greatest assets, and everyone needs to play their part in protecting it. We know that people in our communities are hurting and anxious, and it is up to every person in this place to provide calm, responsible and unifying leadership, to de-escalate tensions and not to inflame them.

I completely understand that people, regardless of their religious, ethnic, cultural or political background, are in pain and are experiencing trauma over what is happening in Gaza and Israel. I am deeply upset and concerned myself, but I will always support the right of every Australian to protest peacefully and understand many Australians wish to express their views about what is happening in Israel and Gaza.

But, in doing so, we categorically condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia or dehumanisation of any kind. For decades throughout my work as an MP and in past roles at SBS and as the Victorian Multicultural Commissioner, I have committed everything I have to protecting and supporting our multicultural society and have condemned discriminatory behaviour, hate speech and incitement of violence based on religion and ethnicity. Those behaviours are not the same as Australians' right to peacefully protest. Right now, it is more critical than ever that we maintain social cohesion and respect for one another to safeguard what we all value so much—our multicultural and pluralistic society.

We must ensure the protection of schoolchildren, teachers, places of worship and all Australians as they go about their lives. Threats or acts of violence against innocent people should never be tolerated or justified. The government is continuing to work with communities affected to keep all Australians safe, to provide support and funding for Australian Muslim, Palestinian and Jewish organisations and to support students in Jewish and Islamic schools.

On the other end are a lot of people who are dealing with this. The member for Goldstein rightly pointed out how many of our staff have faced threats. Regardless of their political affiliation, those staff work hard for our local communities on a huge range of dishes. They support families and communities affected by the humanitarian crisis, and they work every day to ensure community cohesion. That is how important they are.

So, in the hopes of safeguarding the diverse and multicultural society we have built, I call on all sides of politics and all parties to avoid using what is happening for domestic political gain. I call on all sides of politics not to stoke the pain and trauma being experienced by Australians in response to this crisis but instead to work to bring people together and to safeguard our communities, just like this MPI says.

As the member for Wills, one of my priorities is to keep my community safe and secure and to maintain social cohesion. As a member of the Australian government and as chair of the intelligence committee, I work to safeguard Australia's national interests, our national security and Australia's social cohesion. As an Australian of Egyptian heritage, I have a personal understanding and deep connection to the region. It has been tragic and deeply sad for decades. We have our history of supporting Palestinian self-determination and statehood. I also empathise with the families of the Israeli civilians who were killed because the same types of extremists attacked the Coptic community in Egypt which I'm from, deliberately targeting and killing innocent civilians. That is why, in condemning Hamas, I made the important point that the legitimate cause of Palestinian self-determination and statehood does not and can never legitimise Hamas's action. Likewise, Israel's military operation's response against Hamas must distinguish Hamas from innocent civilians, because the loss of innocent Palestinian lives is unacceptable and the protection of innocent lives is paramount.

While most people understand that we may not be able to end the cycle of violence that has gone on for decades in the Middle East, I can and have spoken up for Palestinian and Israeli lives. I refuse to engage in the polarisation and hatred of 'the other' to stoke anger on either side. There is already far too much hatred. I refuse to take the path of engaging in selective empathy or to dehumanise any people, whether they are Palestinian, Israeli, Muslim, Jewish, Christian or atheist. I won't engage in the polarised hate speech that seeks to dehumanise. Nor can we allow that to be facilitated or encouraged.

Rather, my focus is on calling out the devastating loss of life, ending conflict and suffering, and focusing on reaching out to my community in the mosques and Muslim schools in my electorate to protect them against Islamophobia. At this time, it is more critical than ever that we maintain social cohesion and respect for one another to safeguard this multicultural society that we love. In conclusion, we cannot be indifferent to human suffering, wherever it occurs, and we must recognise and always embrace our shared humanity.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If ever there was an MPI, a matter of public importance, as the contributions from my colleagues today have demonstrated, it is this. I believe every member of this place would agree that the events of 7 October in Israel were abhorrent. The international community was appalled by the loss of life, overwhelmingly civilian life, and since that day we have recognised Israel's right to defend itself. While we recognise that right, the footage, images and stories that have come from Gaza, and the loss of civilian lives is devastating. Again, it's civilian lives overwhelmingly being lost—now in their thousands and with the number increasing every day. The huge number of children to die in this conflict is heartbreaking.

More constituents have written to me about this conflict between Israel and Hamas than on any other issue this year. My heart goes out to members of parliament here and their constituents who have been directly impacted. It is clear that Australians are deeply distressed by what is happening in the Middle East. I am deeply distressed by what is happening in the Middle East.

I am also deeply concerned by what is happening at home, here in Australia. One of the things that makes me so proud to be an Australian is our diversity, our multiculturalism and our acceptance and embrace of people of all faiths. Multiculturalism has shown us that there is so much more that unites us than divides us, but what we've seen in our communities here in Australia since 7 October brings me grave concern. And, while I support protesting or demonstrating peacefully for a cause, in many cases what has occurred is not a peaceful statement about what's happening overseas. It has been about intimidation—confronting, devastating—as the member for Goldstein and the member for Macnamara have so clearly illustrated. It has been about sending a message to people here in Australia to make them feel unsafe and unwelcome, and that is never acceptable, and I believe every member here agrees.

It's for this reason that I want to comment on the tone of debate in this House, and most especially yesterday. The words of leaders in this place must be careful and considered. What we say in this place matters. Words matter. And, while in times of such terrible international conflict we can stumble at times to find the right words, we must never deliberately choose to use words designed to divide. As leaders we must model the behaviour we want to see in our community more broadly. That is what generates cohesion. The role of an elected leader is a privilege, and to be the leader of a political party is a greater privilege, and one which comes with a microphone and a platform afforded to few people. We must think very carefully about how we use that privilege.

We should be doing everything we can to prevent unrest and division in our communities, and we should be doing everything to bring our communities together, centred around our shared humanity. We must not tolerate antisemitism, we must not tolerate Islamophobia and we must not tolerate hatred in any form. We absolutely should not be engaging in debate that seeks to be provoking, fuelling or encouraging division and the degradation of social cohesion. To do that to score a political point is not only dangerous to our national cohesion but defiles the gravity of this devastating international conflict. When the words spoken in parliament are intentionally inflammatory it legitimises and encourages further division in the wider community. We are grappling with the absolute tragedy of what is happening in the Middle East, with the frightening rise of antisemitism here at home and with the heartbreak of Palestinian Australians and Jewish Australians alike. To then come into this place and hear political pointscoring in a circumstance as grave as this leaves me, as a member of parliament, at a complete loss. To weaponise the tragedy playing out every day in Middle East and to weaponise the very problem of antisemitism against political rivals is completely irresponsible.

Since when has it been wrong to show compassion? Since when has it been wrong to acknowledge the humanity of those trapped in the unimaginable terror of a war zone? The way some members of this place have chosen to jump down the throats of others on this matter, deliberately seeking to score political points here in this parliament and in the media, is dividing our community and creating a very real threat to some individual members and their staff. Let it not be an unforgivable mistake to have a heart that breaks at the loss of civilian lives, no matter which side.

The conduct and language used in this place is having dual effects, inciting those who wish to use hateful language and silencing those who simply wish to express their humanity and sadness at the loss of thousands of lives. We are at a critical juncture, colleagues, and we must do all in our power to nurture social cohesion, not to divide this great nation.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would just like to thank all the speakers for their very considerate and respectful ways in which they conducted the debate today on the MPI. I preside over many, and this is by far the finest. I also expect it's appreciated by those sitting in the gallery, those tuning into the broadcast and those in our respective communities. Thank you. The time for discussion has now concluded.